Viral Vision
by Citizenjess
Summary: A dull mission in the Outer Rim finds Anakin and the 501st partaking in some pretty dubious activities. Written with D. Based on preview clips from episode 1x05 of the Clone Wars TV series; no intentional spoilers for the episode.


Summary: The impetus behind this is a clip of this week's episode (1x05) of the Clone Wars TV series where some of the clones are bitching about how boring the Outer Rim is. The night-vision bits look like footage from "The Blair Witch Project", and the idea just kind of took off from there. Co-written with patientalien, who appreciates the subtle nuances of Anakin Skywalker's 'fresher habits as much as I do. Rated PG-13. No (intentional) spoilers for the upcoming episode.

* * *

**Viral Vision**

**

* * *

**

It was a dull night, even by Outer Rim standards. Holonet reports would have the galaxy believe that there was a constant influx of excitement and, well, fighting during the Clone Wars, but the reality was that there were a lot of evenings just like this one. Captain Rex preferred the fierce battles, and as head of the 501st, the missions his cavalcade got sent on usually delivered. But this was not one of them, and he blamed what he and his men were about to do on that fact.

"Ow, someone stepped on my foot," one of the clones hissed in a stage whisper.

"Sorry," replied another. Though the tenor was identical, it was never difficult to tell who was responsible for klutzing up an operation.

Sure enough, an irritated guffaw confirmed this a moment later: "Maybe try walkin' on your own stanging feet instead of everyone else's, eh, Oddball?"

"Come on, clankers," Rex said sternly, effectively silencing any remaining grumblers. He shouldered some specialized equipment for the task they were about to undertake. "It's now or never," he continued, his voice mingling with the breathing patterns of his fellow clones in the chilled night air. "Anybody who wants to turn back, speak now, or forever hold your peace." Silence. "All right. Let's go!" he commanded.

A throng of squat, expansive bushes served to keep the lot of them hidden. Rex positioned the camera equipment he was holding, and a moment later, a small red light blinked to signal that it was recording. A couple of clones made peace signs into the lens, but were shooed away. Eventually, they sobered. There was a mission to undertake, after all.

Rex pushed a button; a retractable arm rose away from the body of the camera, several inches into the air, and then began inching forward. Once focused, the image on the camera's pull-out screen revealed their target: Jedi General Anakin Skywalker.

The clones had discovered something very strange about their General a few weeks into the Outer Rim sieges, namely that the young Jedi had shy bowels. Lack of proper 'fresher utilities meant Skywalker held in his bowel movements for days, sometimes even weeks, until he set out in the middle of the night to relieve himself away from prying eyes. It was, Rex thought, the only thing about the Hero With No Fear that the Holonet didn't know. Well, that was about to change.

What they were doing was not out of maliciousness. They rather liked Skywalker, after all. The Jedi was one of the guys, treated them as equals, bought them beer, and made sure as few of them died as possible. However, he could not alleviate the boredom that came from waiting around on a shit-hole planet.

Rex cleared his throat and spoke into the microphone, pitching his voice low so Skywalker's heightened senses wouldn't pick him up. "I'm Captain Rex of the 501st," he introduced himself. "And tonight we're going to watch Anakin Skywalker take a dump."

Sure enough, Skywalker was pulling down his leggings, hitching up his robes, and squatting just above the cold, hard ground. In the night-vision's green glow, his face was one of pure concentration, the same expression Rex had seen on the young General during particularly difficult battles. His eyes, staring at a non-descript focal point, did not see the tiny lens protruding from the bushes. "Ugh," he grunted, straining. "Kriff." He let off a couple of wet farts, and that's when he heard it: laughter.

"Who's there?" he called out into the wilderness. No answer; that didn't mean there wasn't anything there, however, Anakin knew. He tugged his lightsaber from the holster on his crumpled Jedi pants, the blade providing a better view of his surroundings. "Show yourself!" he ordered, still balancing on his toes - he was vulnerable like this, he knew, but he hadn't defecated in nearly a week, and it was finally coming out. "Aaahh, this is disgusting," he muttered to himself.

* * *

"You wanker, are you holding your nose?" one of the clones asked with disdain. This news garnered much more attention and stifled giggles than it deserved, and Rex sensed that his men were growing impatient and cold, squatting in the bushes for so long.

"It's HONKING," came Oddball's nasally reply. More scuffling commenced, which Rex missed due to his own task of holding the camera. Still, when an elbow jostled the equipment, he turned to reprimand them properly, only to find Oddball's arms being wrestled behind his back. "No, guys, come on," Oddball pleaded. "I can't, I have a really weak stomach for stuff like this-"

"Take a whiff!" the clone holding Oddball's helmet ordered. "One long inhale, and you can have this back."

"No, guys ... come on, PLEASE ..."

"This is not how you've been trained to act on a life-threatening mission," Rex said firmly, about to call it quits. Some more scuffling nearly knocked the camera out of his hands. "That's ENOUGH," he said in his loudest whisper. "You are soldiers of the Army of the Republic," he hissed. "It's time to start acting like-"

"Ohhh, that's, I ... I'm gonna hurl," Oddball said weakly, before his stomach gave way. He began hurling loudly, and the General's head snapped up.

"Rex?" he called, seeming to stare through the clumps of foliage directly at them. "Rex, is that you?"

"Run!" one of his men shouted, and the dozen or so clones ran scurring into the night. Rex, sighing, stayed behind, tugging on Oddball's arm, urging him to make haste. Chunks of vomit dripped down his chin. "I'm sorry, Sir," he choked out with a sickly whimper. "I didn't mean to compromise the entire mission, it's just that my stomach is ve-"

"It's all right, Oddball, let's just go," Rex prodded him. He considered it luck that it took Skywalker a while to clean himself up properly, otherwise the mission would have been a complete failure. The camera jostled under his arm with every bump in the dirt path as he and Oddball followed the other clones' footprints back to the camp. He liked his men, but their sportsmanship left a lot to be desired.

* * *

"So, did you have a good bowel movement?" Obi-Wan Kenobi asked once Anakin had returned to the camp and gotten settled in front of the blazing bonfire they'd started in order to keep warm. His former Master had a funny expression on his face, something halfway between disgust and amusement, his datapad balanced on his knee.

Anakin scowled. Bad enough he had to conduct his business in such constrained circumstances, but on top of that, Obi-Wan constantly teased him for it. Not to mention the odd feeling he'd gotten out there, the strange noises that had sounded suspiciously like ... laughter. And vomiting.

"Because it looks like it was a doozy," Obi-Wan continued, holding up his 'pad. Anakin narrowed his eyes and snatched the small device from his Master's hand, realizing that he was watching ... himself. Himself, shitting in the woods. He felt himself flush, then realized something.

"Wait a second," he said incredulously. "This happened, like, eleven minutes ago. How is it on the Holonet so fast?" He shook the 'pad at Obi-Wan. "And YOU said there was no 'Net access out here!"

Obi-Wan shrugged, still smirking. "It's a work of art," he said. "A true work of art. You do the Republic proud, Anakin, really."

Anakin tossed the datapad at Obi-Wan. "That's not fair, Master," he complained, realization dawning. His troops had done this, he knew. It was exactly the sort of thing his personal battallion would do, because, well, it was the sort of thing HE would do. He'd have to just do them one better, that was all. Though revenge was not the Jedi way, Anakin couldn't help feeling a bit un-Jedi-like, given the fact there was a holo of him dropping trou for all to see making the rounds thanks in large part to Rex and the rest of Holotube. He would find a way to one-up them, he vowed.

A sudden idea came to mind: "Master," he said sweetly, "I need your help with something."

Obi-Wan's eye twitched. "I hate when you say things like that," he confessed, but Anakin refused to be put off so easily.

"I have an idea for how to pay the guys back for ... that," he continued smoothly, gesturing at Obi-Wan's still-open datapad. "And you can help me," he added, "because I'm your favorite apprentice in the galaxy-"

"You're my only apprentice, Force willing," Obi-Wan cut in with a yawn.

"Master, I need you to let me film you pooping," Anakin bit out.

Obi-Wan blinked, once, twice, five times. "No," he said finally, vaguely appalled (though not too much, considering the source). "No, Anakin, I will not give you permission to film me, defecating or otherwise."

"C'mon, Master."

"No."

"It'll be f-"

"No."

Anakin sighed. "Okay. Okay, fine. But I hope you know that you're holding me back," he whined.

But Obi-Wan's attention had already been diverted to his datapad. "I'm sorry," he said, glancing up, "I could have sworn that you had ceased being interested in my bowel movements."

"Master, I will never stop being interested in things coming and going from your ass," Anakin grinned. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes.

* * *

The next few days passed painfully. Anakin made it his sole mission to one-up the clones in Holotube hits - no small feat considering "Skywalker takes a crap" was garnering upwards of five thousand views per day. But he was sure, with his strategic battle-mind, he could come up with something just as popular, if not moreso. Now, if only Obi-Wan would cooperate ...

Hefting the camera, Anakin snuck up behind his old Master. He knew that holos of beings getting hit in their crotches were always popular, so that was what he hoped to accomplish on this particular run. He cleared his throat to get Obi-Wan to turn around, but before he could actually put his plan in motion, Obi-Wan had planted a solid kick to his solar plexus, sending Anakin crashed to the ground, wheezing and whimpering. "*Why*?" he moaned.

"Don't do that again, Anakin," Obi-Wan admonished.

But Anakin did. Getting the clones back had become a top priority for him, and try as he might, he couldn't keep himself from hoping that if he just made yet another attempt to catch Obi-Wan's humiliation on film, he could kill two gundarks with one stone, so to speak. And every time, Obi-Wan met each attempt with groin-punching resistance. Trying to stir up pity, Anakin even tried confronting his Master with an icepack covering his crotch, hoping to fake his Master out. However, when he reared up, Obi-Wan simply grabbed the cold compress and jabbed Anakin's bits with the heavy tip of his boot in one fluid motion. "Anakin, this is most childish," he sighed, eyeing his former apprentice rolling around on the ground boredly.

"I'll ... n-never give ... up ..." Anakin choked out, eyes watering.

Obi-Wan crossed his arms over his chest. "I certainly hope you change your mind," he exclaimed, shaking his head. "Your responsibility out here is to prepare your troops for the war, after all," he continued, falling into lecture mode.

Anakin grunted. "I'm teaching them a lesson."

"What?" Obi-Wan smirked, "that your groin is made of perma-rubber?"

"Too soon, Master," Anakin grimaced, still fetal.

* * *

It took a few more days and a few more failed attempts at catching Obi-Wan unawares before Anakin decided to do a little recon. "So, what makes a good holo?" he asked Rex as they practiced their hand-to-hand sparring. Anakin wasn't sure he wanted to risk his goods again, but Obi-Wan had told him to practice or else, so there he was.

Rex shrugged and thrust his fist towards Anakin's chest. Anakin grabbed the clone's arm easily and bent it backwards. "Ungh," Rex grunted, "I don't know, Sir. Bodily functions, crotch-punching..." Anakin grimaced. "I guess if somebody drank pee, that would be good." He slithered out of Anakin's grip and kicked at the Jedi's shin. Anakin tripped and fell face-first into the mud. He almost hoped for a battle to break out at this point; he would be much less apt to continue being beaten up by his comrades in that case.

"Gotcha," he muttered, and grabbed Rex's ankle, pulling him down beside him. Before Rex could recover, Anakin had stood. "Thanks, Rex," he said, and jogged off, ready to put his next idea into action.

* * *

The first thing Ahsoka saw when her eyes opened was the towering form of her Master, whose prodding had brought her out of a very nice dream involving visiting her home world, and mujaberry pie. (Anakin had not been in it.) "Master?" she asked, battle skills well-honed, even at her young age. "Are we under attack?"

"No, no, of course not," Anakin said, a little too placatingly. It made Ahsoka sigh and straighten into a sitting position. "Nothing like that, Snips."

Ahsoka's head-tails bobbed as she yawned. "Then where's the fire?" she asked a tad grumpily. Her Master, when he bothered to sleep, hardly ever woke up before she did, and generally did not interact with her until it was time for sparring practice or when she'd lured him with the smell of a hot meal. That he was now standing with his hands clasped behind his back, smiling innocently told Ahsoka that he was anything but.

Anakin grinned, then reached over a tousled a head-tail. "There's no fire, Snips," he assured her again. The toothy smile widened. "Snips, Snips, snippy snippy Snips," he sing-songed. "You like your Master, don't you?"

"Um." Ahsoka rubbed sleep out of her eyes. "Yes?"

"And," her Master continued, rocking back and forth on his heels, "you'd do anything to make your Master happy, right?" Ahsoka narrowed her eyes, not sure she liked where this was heading. A bored Anakin, she knew, was a dangerous Anakin.

"I ... guess ..." she said carefully, then added, "are you, like, *on* something?" Knowing her Master, he'd probably gotten ahold of some bad berries or something of the sort. Intentionally, even.

Anakin shook his head, still looking terribly pleased with himself. "Well, Snips," he said, "since you love me so much and want to do anything to please me ..." He whipped his arms out from behind his back and presented her with a jar filled with yellow liquid. "I need you to drink this for me."

Ahsoka stared at him incredulously. "Master, that's urine," she informed him. He nodded, proudly. "Master, I'm not drinking urine." He'd asked her to do some crazy things in her time as his apprentice, but this one really was up there on the weird-and-creepy scale.

Anakin's face fell. "Why not?" he asked, almost pouting. "It's sterile. I made it myself."

Ahsoka frowned at him, eyes narrowed, fully awake, now. "Master, I shouldn't have to explain to you why I don't want to drink your pee," she said, her voice hard.

Her Master waved his hand. "Okay, a minor setback, but I can work with this." He pointed at Ahsoka's small trunk of supplies. "Can I borrow some of your clothes, then?"

"What?" She'd only been awake for five minutes, and already the Togruta had reached the point where she began to feel sorry for herself for being apprenticed to Anakin Skywalker. It didn't bode well for the rest of the day.

"I said-" Anakin began again, but Ahsoka cut him off.

"I heard you, I heard you. What use could you have for my clothes?" she sighed, almost afraid to find out.

Anakin's face was optimistic. "It's a project I'm doing. Come on, Snips, give over," he urged, reaching for her trunk. Ahsoka quickly shoved herself on top of it to halt his progress. "Sharing is caring, my very young Padawan," Anakin griped.

Ahsoka crossed her arms over her chest. "I am not giving you my clothes, Master! I only have a couple of outfits, and I don't think I'd get them back in the same state that they leave in."

Anakin sighed. "You'd get them back," he protested. He grinned crookedly and nudged her with his elbow. "C'mon, Snippers, who's your favorite Master?"

"Master Plo," Ahsoka answered without hesitation.

"What!" Anakin blinked, vaguely insulted. "How come?"

Ahsoka ticked the reasons off on her fingers. "He doesn't take my clothes, and he's never tried to make me drink pee," she noted aloud.

"Yet," Anakin countered.

"I can go on."

Anakin sighed. "That won't be necessary."

"Then go away and find someone else to torture!" she ordered, knowing she would never be able to get back to sleep now. Anakin looked crestfallen. It never ceased to amaze her how much her Master could look like an oversized youngling when he pouted. Then again, given how often he *acted* like a youngling ...

"I thought you loved me," he whimpered.

"Not that much," she informed him. "Go amuse yourself somewhere else, Sky Guy."

With a huff, Anakin turned on his heel and stalked away.

* * *

Ahsoka knew she shouldn't have left her trunk unguarded. When she returned from the latrine, she simply stared in horror for a long moment at the sight that greeted her back in her tent. Her Master ... her very tall, very well-muscled Master, was wearing her clothes. Not only was he wearing her clothes, but he was preening in front of what looked like a holorecorder. She wondered if she should turn around and tell Master Obi-Wan that Anakin's mind had taken a vacation, but ... well ... she wasn't overly surprised, to be honest. "Master," she said firmly when she trusted herself to speak without screaming, "Master, I told you not to."

Anakin turned to her and she sighed deeply. Those clothes were never going to go back to the right shape. And the skirt was far too short. In fact ... "Master, your, uh, you ..." She flushed. "Cover yourself, for kriff's sake!"

Glancing down, Anakin smirked. "If you've got 'em, flaunt 'em," he replied. "And watch your stanging mouth, Snips."

Ahsoka grimaced. "I can see your nuts, Master!"

Anakin giggled. "That's a funny word. You're funny, Snips."

"I hate you," Ahsoka sighed, shaking her head as if trying to unsee her Master's junk. "So now that you've completely ignored my lack of permission to wear my clothes, can you give them back, now?" she asked.

Anakin shook his head. "Can't. Not until I get it on film, anyway." He grasped a device that Ahsoka recognized as one of the standard issue Holorecorders; Padawans could only check them out from the Archives with written permission from a Master. They were very expensive, and really had no business being on this craphole planet. "All battalion leaders get them," Anakin said, seeing her face puzzling over the details. "For documentation. I don't know if Holotube is what the Council had in mind, though," he grinned.

Ah, there it was. "You wanted a holovid of me drinking pee to put on Holotube?" Ahsoka squeaked.

Anakin thumbed his nipples through Ahsoka's now extensively stretched out top. "The guys posted one of me doing ... something," he hedged. "I wanna show them up."

"But ... drinking pee?" Ahsoka pressed.

Anakin waved his hand. "Since you won't, it's a moot point," he shrugged. "But it has to be hardcore like that."

"What did they record you doing?" Ahsoka asked curiously.

Anakin waved his hand dismissively. "Never mind," he said crisply. "I just need something better to show them up, that's all." He struck a pose in front of the recorder and Ahsoka shielded her eyes.

"You know ..." she said carefully, "Holotube was pretty much invented for me and my agemates. I could help you come up with something that *doesn't* involve you wearing my clothes or me drinking your pee." Anything, really, to get Anakin to get back into his own clothing. His own, fully-genital-covering clothing.

Her Master turned to her and she sighed and cast her eyes towards the ground. "Really, Snips?" he asked, sounding somewhat touched. "You'd do that for me?"

Ahsoka sighed again. "I guess," she replied. "But I have to know what they caught you doing so I can figure out what will be better than that." She grabbed Anakin's discarded cloak from her cot and handed it to him. He took it, somewhat sullenly, and pulled it on. Ahsoka breathed a sigh of relief.

"They recorded me, uh, aggressively negotiating in the woods," he said, after a long silence. She watched his face turn red as she realized what he meant, and she *tried* not to giggle, but it came out anyway.

"They recorded you taking a crap in the woods," she clarified, her head-tails curling in her amusement. She shook her head - her Master was so weird. "We have perfectly good latrines, you know," she reminded him, sitting down, cross-legged on her cot.

Anakin wrinkled his nose and sat beside her, pooling his cloak in his lap, for which she was immensely grateful. "But they smell like pee," he complained.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "I think you've got the concept of 'freshers very confused." She smiled, noting that her Master's private bits were once again private. "Anyway, what do I get if I do this for you?"

"To live?" Anakin grumped.

Ahsoka's head-tails bobbed. "Wrong answer, Master."

Anakin sighed. "I'll buy you a new outfit when we get back to Coruscant," he offered eventually.

Ahsoka looked skeptical. "And new boots?"

"I didn't even touch your boots!" Anakin roared.

Ahsoka shrugged. "You must not want to beat Rex and the guys too badly, then," she stalled.

Anakin growled. "Fine. New boots, too."

"You'll go shopping with me?" Ahsoka queried. "And you won't womp out halfway through it or run off for a quickie in the 'fresher like last time?"

"Your memory is too good," Anakin grumbled.

"Master!"

"Okay, okay." Anakin shrugged off the rest of Ahsoka's garments and handed them to her. "No womping or quickies."

"Pinkie swear?"

"For kriff's sake ..." Anakin swore, but he laced digits with his Padawan nonetheless. "So spill," he told her after she'd grimaced at the ruined clothes one more time and tucked them away into her trunk anew. "What's going to put me on top again?"

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "the pee drinking isn't a bad idea, really." In the scheme of things, it was pretty much a guaranteed million hits, depending on who was doing the drinking. "But," she said quickly, holding up a hand, "I'm not drinking your pee."

Anakin chewed on his lower lip for a long moment. "What if it was Obi-Wan?" he asked, and Ahsoka couldn't help wondering how Anakin hoped to pull *that* off, since he hand't been able to even get near the older Jedi without getting kicked in the groin for the past week.

She shrugged. "I guess so, but he's never going to do it."

The look in Anakin's eyes was downright wicked. "Oh, he'll do it," he assured her. "I can get Obi-Wan to do anything."

* * *

"Anakin, you are beginning to try my patience," Obi-Wan noted aloud, several days later. Anakin twitched on the ground, moaning occasionally. "If you have nothing better to do with your time than this childish fare, perhaps Ahsoka can take over your duties as General."

"Hi, Master Kenobi!" Ahsoka said cheerfully, leaning against some foliage as she filmed her Master's prone form, sprawled on the ground.

Said Master coughed painfully, clutching his nether regions. "That's ... harsh, Master," he whimpered, then glared at Ahsoka after Obi-Wan had wandered off. "You don't have to film this."

"You told me to get everything," his Padawan reminded him casually. "Besides, the last five Holovids of you being kicked in the groin by Master Obi-Wan have all been very popular on Holotube."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Anakin hissed. He pulled himself into a sitting position with great effort. "Maybe I'm just going about this the wrong way ..."

* * *

"AAAHHH."

"Anakin, for kriff's sake-"

"Aaahh, my EYES. You threw rubbing bacta in my EYES."

"... you were trying to assail me with rubbing bacta?" Obi-Wan asked incredulously. "What in the blazes were you thinking, Anakin?"

"It would have been hilarious," Anakin sobbed, clutching at his face. In her usual perch, Holorecorder rolling, Ahsoka gave him a thumbs-up sign and grinned.

* * *

"Well, it's over," Anakin bemoaned, sighing and rubbing his feet. "I'm never going to post something on Holotube that isn't going to be funny at my expense. I may as well just throw in the towel."

Ahsoka put a hand on his shoulder, and Anakin flinched slightly, almost expecting her to rear back and kick him, or tickle him, or throw something disgusting at him. "Poor Master," she said instead. "I feel almost as bad for you as I do for Oddball."

Anakin turned and quirked an eyebrow at her. "What's wrong with Oddball?" he asked. Surely Oddball couldn't be having half as bad a time of this mission as he was, after all.

His apprentice shrugged. "I overheard Rex and Coric talking about them throwing Oddball a ... blanket party ... tonight," she replied, and Anakin's eyes lit up.

"Snips, if I wasn't mildly repulsed by all non-human species, I would kiss you," he told her. He grabbed up the oft-used Holorecorder and cuddled it. "Come on," he told Ahsoka. "Let's make sure we have front row seats."


End file.
